With the release of their third and allegedly final album Gorrilaz have now firmly become my favourite virtual band, this has of course been partly due to my other favourite virtual band The Wombles stopping recording new material some years ago. I loved Demon Days and I am now on my second copy having simply just worn out my original purchase, so I was excited at the arrival of Plastic Beach some five years later, release may have delayed a little due to a brief Blur reunion? I guess Plastic Beach could be classed as less commercial than Demon Days, but from the first listen I think this roughly translates into it not having an obvious anthem in there. It is definitely a great and interesting listen, but I certainly could not see that this release would provide any DJ with a get out jail card when stuck for a bit of a floor filler on a Friday night.
Producers on previous releases include Danger Mouse and Dan the Automator, neither are involved this time, but here come the celebrities, with Snoop, Mos Def, De La Soul, Mick Jones, Bobby Womack and Lou Reed all joining Damon Albarn for a day out on the Plastic Beach. Manchester legend Mark E Smith also features on the track Glitter Freeze with a great opening line of “Where’s north from here?” With 1998 only being yesterday for many of us, it is classed as back in the day for the cool kids, Bobby Womack is unlikely to be on constant rotation on their ipod touch, all is not lost as Bashy and Kano make an appearance on a track with the Lebanese National Orchestra. I wasn’t as shocked by the very inventive collaboration on White Flag as much as I was surprised that Kano and Bashy actually sounded more like accomplished rappers than grime MCs.
Again this release is impossibe to fit in any one genre of music, although could be classed as lo fi garage dub hip hop rock electronica pop I suppose, for me personally it still remains as some of the best stuff Damon Albarn has ever done, that saying I was never a huge brit pop fan. At time of writing Stylo with Bobby Womack and Mos Def stands out, this could of course change by the weekend. I also hope it inspires people to dig out (or buy) the previous two albums.
posted: 10/03/10filled under: Musicwords by: Keith Griffiths0 Comments